With the evermore common deployment of computer workstations and personal computers using a mouse input device, the work space of existing office furniture stock is increasingly crowded by the existing paper flows and added presence of the computer equipment on existing office furniture. To avoid wholesale abandonment of existing office furniture yet provide a work space useful to the operation of computer equipment it is often necessary to purchase additional furniture to provide worksurfaces to deploy the computer equipment on. This is particularly true where the computer system uses a mouse input device in addition to the keyboard found in such personal computer and computer workstation systems. Frequently office work space does not provide sufficient floor area to permit the incorporation of additional pieces of office furniture.
To avoid the purchase of additional office furniture, and all of the concomitant problems associated therewith, it has, in the past, been proposed to provide various additions to existing worksurfaces thereof to accommodate the elements of a workstation computer system. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,776,284 to McIntosh describes a retractable keyboard platform having a swing-link extension that attaches the platform to the workstation desktop such that the keyboard may be positioned on the platform. When in use, the platform swings out from under the desktop and locks into position at the front of the desktop that is supporting the computer. The keyboard may then be used by the operator to provide input to the computer. When use of the computer is completed, the platform and keyboard resting thereon is swung into storage under the desktop until the next time it is needed. Such a platform is not ideally suited to additionally incorporating a portion of space suitable for operation of a computer mouse input device as a mouse requires an operating space of approximately 100 square inches, measuring approximately 10 inches by 10 inches. Thus to make such a platform useful for additionally operating the mouse device would require extending the platform surface laterally by about 10 inches making its manufacture more costly. Moreover, the keyboard trays are typically narrower than 10 inches across their girth. To adequately provide a mouse work area at either end of an extended keyboard tray would additionally require the tray itself to be made broader than is ideally required for a tray which is used for a keyboard alone.
The mouse tray apparatus disclosed herein eliminates the need for a expensive replacement of existing work space furniture or the need to provide additional office furniture to provide extra worksurfaces for operation of a mouse input device for the computer system.
In one of its aspects, the invention provides apparatus to provide a mountable worksurface for the operation of a computer mouse adapted to be attached to a computer workarea comprising a first clamp element slidably attached to a substantially flat rectangular mouse worksurface and locking means to lock said first clamp element at a predetermined position in relation to said mouse worksurface whereby said first clamp element is adapted to clamp the upper portion of a computer workarea with said mouse worksurface positioned horizontally at a selected off-set to the computer workarea; a pair of extension arms attached to and extending below opposing sides of said mouse worksurface, adjacent to the side incorporating said first clamp element; each extension arm provided with a channel for slidably receiving a second clamp element, said second clamp element adapted to be positioned to engage the underside of said computer workarea inward from the edge thereof, and locking means to lock each said second clamp element to its corresponding extension arm at a predetermined position whereby said computer mouse worksurface will be rigidly attached to said computer workarea providing a mouse worksurface positioned above or below said computer workarea.